Luke Finn

introduction

I take great pleasure in turning the mundane into something beautiful and dreamlike through the ethereal use of paint. I paint large backgrounds of hazy colour, interspersing them with small, figurative elements that give the piece a suggested narrative.
At the heart of my work is a love of colour, drawing inspiration from the artists I most admire; Kandinsky, Rothko and Matisse. More recently I have begun to marry abstracted, colourful backdrops with the bold, graphic elements of my secondary inspiration; Cd covers, posters, wallpaper, and just about anything in the visual world with a clean, crisp finish. This recent work has utilised lino and wood cuts, merging defined, regimented shapes with a colourful, dreamlike background, often with a figurative element. These figurative elements come from photographs I have amassed over the years; friends, family, famous people, fantasy characters, characters from films and books or just my imagination. These are part of my turning the everyday into something extraordinary.
I pursued my BA in Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art. Whilst there I had work on display at The Royal Scottish Academy and Chessel Gallery, and realsied that he viewers reaction to my work, is, along with an innate sense of joy for the subject, what keeps me doing this.
On completion of my degree I moved back to Manchester where I have continued to exhibit my work. I have had work displayed at Revolve Gallery, Pirus Gallery, The Edge Gallery in Lancaster and took part in The Whitworth Gallery’s Christmas markets.